I’m not much into decoration and stuff. But in the last couple months I have been in 4 or 5 conversations with older people complaining they were going to be throwing out good furniture, because nobody wanted it, even for free for moving it *. In most of the cases I got the feeling they were caught totally off guard. That these were things they had either inherited themselves, or gotten long ago, and thought that the kids were drooling over the chance to get them in their houses, when the time came for the older folks to reduce their living style to apartments etc. they found out that nobody wanted them. The only people interested were people their own age who were getting rid of their own stuff. And the reaction was basically shock, like they never considered someone turning down good furniture.
I personally was never really that interested in those old pieces of furniture they always seemed kind of imposing and outdated to me, but I assumed it was because I have no taste
In addition nearly everybody I know who has really finally invested in the “furniture they always wanted” was empty nest age, and only 10-15 years or so younger than the people getting rid of stuff.
Most people I know seem perfectly fine with Flat-pack and mass market stuff, at least until their kids are gone, at which point they want something they want, not something mom or their neighbors happened to have .
I was curious if this is just a coincidental set, or if it is a general trend these days.
They mentioned names, the only one I recognized was Duncan Fife. And yes I mentioned eBay and Craigslist; after 20 minutes I gave up on explaining. Also even though I typed furniture 10 times, I never got it right once without auto correct. :smack:
How old are the people and how old are the’kids’? If you’re talking about people in their 50s-60s wanting to hand-me-down furniture to people in their 30s or 40s, a lot of people in that age range have had a chance to fully furnish their house and would have to ditch their own stuff to take in the new-old furniture. If the ‘kids’ aren’t in their own well-furnished house already, then the old furniture is probably too big and bulky for the smaller place they do have and again they’ve likely already got things that they do like for the smaller space.
I love any old furniture that is actually wood and not press board and the like. If it is wood, I can fix it, refinish it and make it useful. If the older furniture is not actually wood I would rather just buy new. I like the unfinished furniture as it is closer to being actual wood.
I’ve also built some pieces. Mostly tables and book shelves but still nicer than Sauder or Ikea.
It’s not dying, it’s dead. Furniture is utilitarian, and inexpensive. Everybody has plenty of furniture if they want it, owning furniture in itself is not a status symbol. Plenty of what people consider fine furniture isn’t really valuable anyway, just because it’s made out of real wood doesn’t increase it’s value as a piece of art or as an antique just because it’s old. People may have justified the cost of this kind of furniture in the past by considering it to be ‘heirloom’ but for most people a table is just a table, and in the modern world a table is a disposable item.
Tripolar is correct. Furniture is hugely cheaper than it was. In addition, Craigslist makes it much easier to buy other people’s used furniture. So if you want some furniture, you can either get it new for a lot less than your parents and grandparents paid, albeit made from lower quality materials, or get it for almost nothing from Craigslist. (though you might have to do a bit of scrubbing to get the last people’s funk off it)
Oddly enough, my brother’s in-laws just got rid of most of the furniture from their living room. It was old stuff, with ornate legs and feet and whatnot. They were tired of having it re-upholstered. I always felt their living room was uncomfortable and awkward, especially for kid-related family gatherings. They haven’t replaced the stuff yet but for the holidays they took in two chairs from my brother’s house from Target.
Old rich people sometimes have nice old furniture. Old middle class people generally have shit that they think is nice. Most of it is plastic laminated fiberboard.
Yup, this is it. I have some bedroom furniture from my folks, it must be 60 years old. I love it, but when we eventually move on from it I understand that no one wants it and it may be trashed. A shame, but you can’t force people to want things.
My parents rescued a gorgeous oak bedroom set from the trash heap when I was a baby, it was probably at least 30 or 40 years old then (40 years ago). I haven’t really wanted to keep it because the bed is a double and too short for me to sleep on comfortably. We had it in my daughter’s room for a while, but as a six year old, she’d rather have floor space for playing than a big fancy antique bed eating up her room. We tried selling it on craigslist and at a consignment antique store, but no takers. Now it sits in a storage room I our basement. I just don’t think antique furniture is as popular as it once was for most people.
We are soon moving to a much larger, historic, house, and I fully intend to furnish it with ‘good’ furniture. That doesn’t mean I am going to buy the large, heavy, mass-produced, dated furniture so common to middle class American homes decorated by baby boomers with more discretionary income than taste.
To me, good furniture is simple, timeless, and carefully and traditionally constructed out of natural materials by craftsmen. It is now, and will always be, expensive, as far as I can tell from looking at estate sales, antique consignment, and modern reproductions.
A far more mobile society with a straitened middle class and a global furniture industry has made big changes in furniture buying habits. But we shouldn’t judge the whole history of furniture by what happened in the post wwII era.
I would like to stumble upon one more wooden dresser. But actual wood pieces are rare to find these days and have gotten pricey in this area. (Central Jersey). I saw a piece I liked in a junky antique store and even the drawers were wood but it was $400 which felt a bit steep.
I would love it, or at least the chance to look at it and consider it, and I’d suppose many others would, too. Just maybe not the particular people they have in mind, like their own kids.
Craigslist it. Yeah, old furniture is not the thriving market it used to be, and you won’t get a windfall when granny dies and you clear out her house. But it will move if you advertise and price it cheaply enough. We just recently got a red velvet couch for $75 from a place in South St. Louis called Mid-Century Modern. Kind of like a Goodwill for furniture. It’s fun to walk through there and imagine the swinging 60s pad you could fix up and groove in if you had the space, money and time.
I’d prefer older, Edwardian or Victorian pieces, but I’d guess they’re all filling either dumps or museums at this point in time. Or if they’re for sale, they’re way beyond my price range.
Also, why is the American Dream “to own a massive house, bigger than I need, stuffed with expensive stuff”. And then these adults following that dream work their whole lives just to pay the mortgage on the place, to keep up with the loans on their new automobiles, and so on until they are too old and then they retire and die. I knew a family where both parents worked all week and all weekend it was nothing but repairs to their 5000 square foot house + grounds. Maybe they’d relax on Sunday. Most rooms were dusty from disuse.
The repair list on the fridge would be 3 feet long.
Wouldn’t it be way more efficient to live in a place that actually meets your needs? You know, a main room, a kitchen, a bedroom per pair of occupants? And spend the savings on experiences? It’s a lot more memorable to travel somewhere else and have a vacation in a nice country than to buy a nice table you shove in a room somewhere.
Efficiency is not everyone’s goal, and not everyone enjoys/is able to travel. My house is much smaller than 5000 square feet- it’s more like a thousand. And my dream house would be bigger- but not because I want more stuff. It’s because of the experiences I’d like to have. I’d like to not have to cut my guest list for holidays down - but it’s already at 24 and that’s the most we can jam in. Once my kids and my nieces and nephews start having kids of their own, we won’t all fit in any of our houses so holidays will be different. I’d like to have a couple of extra bedrooms that would fit more than a single bed so those future grandchildren (and possibly their parents if they move away) can spend the night. I’d like a bigger kitchen, so that my husband and I won’t get into each other’s way. I don’t have those things now because a bigger house here costs more than I was ever willing to spend, but I would have enjoyed the extra space every day far more than I would have enjoyed taking a more expensive vacation for a couple of weeks a year.
As far as furniture, there are a lot of reasons why people don’t want “heirloom” furniture. Sometimes it’s taste ( I hated my mother’s Early American/plaid living room- when she bought it in the '70s- why would I want it now), but there are also other reasons. I would have loved my grandparents bedroom set - but the headboard/footboard was for a full-sized bed and I wanted at least a queen-sized.
I pretty much represent this even though I’m a millennial. My dream home is about 7000 sqft on 10 acres. I like old furniture, I’m typing at my grandfather’s desk which is made from solid oak (though it has an ugly red leather wrapping on the top that is going away someday). My parents have a gorgeous rosewood kingsize bedroom set we bought in Japan back in the mid-80s that I look forward to inheriting. In general, I’d rather live in a nice place and never leave than have to travel to nice places and live in a home that sucks.
Of course, our next home will be in the 1,500 - 2,000 sqft range with a small yard so I don’t have to spend much time taking care of it with just enough space for us, a guest, our pets and to get our important stuff out of storage. Our old 4,500 sqft home on a 1/3 of an acre was too much to keep up with as our lives got busier and currently we’re in a 1,200 sqft apartment which is way too small
I love old furniture. My maternal grandparents were antique dealers, and they gave some beautiful things to my mom over the years. I appreciate the craftsmanship and the fact that the stuff doesn’t just fall apart if you move it a couple of times.
The butt-ugly bedroom set that my parents bought when they were first married in the 1960s, that my mom still has? HELL no - you couldn’t pay me to take that thing.
We don’t have a huge house (1300 sq. feet) - we live in a relatively expensive urban area, and we also like to spend money on travel rather than just on stuff. I like my house to be comfy, but it definitely doesn’t look like it was done by a professional decorator. Our stuff is a somewhat eclectic mix of hand-me-downs, Craigslist, and some more modern stuff that was purchased new (modern couches, for example, are much more comfortable to sprawl on IMO). But when we add things, they are generally made out of actual wood, even if we aren’t the first owners.
Look, if you inherit the funds for a place like that or win the lottery, that’s one thing. But are you willing to work for decades and thousands of hours per year in order to afford a place like that? 40-50 hours a week for 30+ years? Because if you have the right career that actually pays enough per hour, and can find a location where 10 acres can be bought for less than a fortune, and have a spouse who is in on this dream, and are willing to sign a $750,000+ mortgage note and then make the payments for 30 years…yeah, you could have that.
I think that’s inefficient for most people. If you had the same income and lived in a much smaller place, you’d have a lot more money and could spend that money on other, more fun things that a big place. Plus there would be much less strain on your financial resources and much less stress if you are facing a job loss.
